This week, a new pontiff was elected to replace Pope Francis who passed on last month. Born Robert Francis Prevost, the new leader of the Catholic Church chose the name Pope Leo XIV. And now some people are claiming that new Pope Leo XIV was chaplain at Uganda’s St Leo’s Kyegobe (SLECK). The Pearl Times explores the claims in this fact check report.
Let us begin with some facts on when Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost – Now Pope Leo XIV – visited Uganda.
What is true of new Pope Leo XIV – previously Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost – is that he was part of the delegation of Pope Francis when the late pontiff visited Uganda from November 27-29, 2015.
Prevost walked closer to the pope, as he was his translator during the visit. Prevost and other members of Pope Francis’ delegation slept at Sheraton Hotel during their visit in Uganda.
Pope Francis was the third Pope to visit Uganda. Pope Paul VI had visited in 1969 while Pope John Paul II came in 1993.
The claims on Pope Leo XIV previously working as chaplain at St Leo’s College Kyegobe (SLECK)
The claims were first made in a social media post by a one Edwin Muzahura who wrote: “The newly elected Pope Leo XIV was a champlain [sic] at St. Leo’s Kyegobe Fort Portal Uganda in 1987 to 1988 before being posted to Peru. Uganda tell your story.”
The claims seemed to have been debunked as false.
“I’m an old Student of SLECK – St. Leo’s Kyegobe! Please disregard this story! It’s fake!” wrote Conan Businge, a former press secretary to Vice President Jessica Alupo, and former education editor at New Vision.
But later, veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda, appeared to resurrect and amplify the claims.
“All good things come from Kanyandahi. The new Pope was a chaplain at St Leo’s College, Kyegobe, in Fort Portal on the road to Kanyandahi – a satellite neighborhoods of Kanyandahi,” Mwenda claimed, attaching images of Pope Leo XIV’s profile edited to include St Leo’s Kyegobe.
“That is how he got his blessings that led him to the papacy.”
Claims by both Muzahura and Mwenda have been flagged false by St Leo’s Kyegobe old students.
How the claims started
It also seems that claims of Prevost serving as chaplain at St Leo’s Kyegobe began as a joke in an association’s social media group, The Pearl Times has learnt.
“This story started as a joke by St Leo’s old students. One of these people, and a former NV journalist wrote this clarification below: The whole circus started with ME on SLECKER’s forum. SLECKER stands for St Leo’s College Kyegobe,” wrote an OB who goes by the moniker Potter on microblogging site X, formerly Twitter.
“The forum is for the OBs of St Leo’s and we are many generations. I was Leo’s in the cohort of 1970-73. There was no HSC then. Someone wrote that the new pope might be a Slecker and I jokingly wrote back “confirming” it. I said he was my classmate and I even mentioned the name of our headmaster, Bro John Houlihan, to make it appear authentic.
I even referred the members to a classmate of my cohort, Apollo Kasoro, who is on the forum. He also jokingly “confirmed”.
Little did we know that it would set off a domino effect!! Some creative fellows started making all sorts of statements and that is how someone doctored the pope’s CV!”
Let’s Look at 1987-1988
Some have also claimed that during that time, the chaplain at the school was Rev Father Robert Muhiirwa Akiiki, the Bishop of Fort Portal Diocese.
Furthermore, The Pearl Times has not found St Leo’s Kyegobe on the official profile of Pope Leo XIV as shared by Vatican News and other authorities on papal issues.
In the years 1987-1988, Robert Francis Prevost seemed to have been engaged on his doctorate, mission in Illinois (USA) and in Peru.
“In 1987, he defended his doctoral thesis on ‘The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine’ and was appointed vocation director and missions director of the Augustinian Province of ‘Mother of Good Counsel’ in Olympia Fields, Illinois (USA),” read part of Pope Leo XIV’s profile on Vatican News
“Mission in Peru: The following year, he joined the mission in Trujillo, also in Peru, as director of the joint formation project for Augustinian candidates from the vicariates of Chulucanas, Iquitos, and Apurímac. Over the course of eleven years, he served as prior of the community (1988–1992), formation director (1988–1998), and instructor for professed members (1992–1998), and in the Archdiocese of Trujillo as judicial vicar (1989–1998) and professor of Canon Law, Patristics, and Moral Theology at the Major Seminary “San Carlos y San Marcelo.”
Read Pope Leo XIV’s full profile Here.
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